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Winery Direct: The Signs are Out There

Our wine-buying team is passionate about finding new and exciting wines, so they travel the United States and abroad looking for start-ups, up-and-coming producers and multi-generational family wineries. Over the years, they’ve cultivated relationships with hundreds of wine producers small and large, many of whom don’t have big marketing budgets. What they do have are big hearts, which they pour into making their wines.

The relationships give us exclusive access to some truly exceptional wines. More important, they allow us to streamline the process of bringing the wine from producer to you, slashing costs and letting us showcase the best of the wine world on our shelves while offering incredible pricing.

These are Total Wine & More’s Winery Direct wines. You’ll see them identified in our stores by the yellow shelf tags, and online by the small Winery Direct icons in many product listings. We offer more than 8,000 wines in a typical Total Wine & More store — and more than 2,000 of them are Winery Direct, many exclusive to Total Wine & More.

The signs are out there. When you see the Winery Direct® logo, be assured that you’ll be getting a great wine at an incredible value.

The Winery Direct selections include gems like the wines of Sobon Estate, a family owned and operated winery with a reputation for producing a collection of delicious wines using low-yield viticulture and minimal-intervention winemaking techniques. The Sobons emphasize rich fruit flavors and low tannin in their wines, which reflect the unique California Shenandoah Valley environment, resulting in a richness and intensity rarely seen elsewhere.

Winemaker Paul Sobon makes a firm commitment to the environment by crafting outstanding Zinfandel, grown sustainably at his carbon-neutral winery.

Next time you’re in store, we invite you to ask one of our friendly wine team members for a Winery Direct recommendation, or browse the brightly colored yellow tags that identify these special values. Each tag has detailed information on the flavor and style of the wine as well as the producer.

I started off with one of my faves – Louis Bouillot Perle d’Aurore Rose – delish! I was also low on still roses, so I also bought Chateau de Segries Tavel, Domaine Mordoree Tavel, and Domaine Mousset Cotes de Rhone Rose. Once I got on a roll, it was on to the reds, so I also purchased a Regina de Renieri (a WS 94 – I can’t wait to try it, but not yet – 2015-2030 is recommended for drinking). And the list goes on! Thanks to TW, I’ve long outgrown my wine rack, so I hope you’ll think about carrying those soon, too (126 bottle, please)!